Friday, April 09, 2010

Tea Party Express Throwing the Big Republican Money Around

The grass is definitely greener on this "grassroots" side of the aisle. As the press is gleefully reporting the activities of the Tea Party Express, rolling through our state on a mission to take out Stupak, has any one of them stopped to ask the party organizers about the amount of money being thrown around here? For example, doesn't anyone think it's a bit odd that they can drop a quarter of a million dollars on ads in the UP, just like that?

The Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the national tea party movement, considers Stupak its No. 2 target for defeat after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The group began a $250,000 television and radio campaign targeting Stupak on Wednesday.

While Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidates are mumbling under their breath about the money Snyder has spent so far as they scramble to get to a million or two for their own campaigns, isn't it funny that this "grassroots" organization can offer Bart Stupak nearly three-quarters of a million to retire?

The group organizing the tour even offered Stupak $700,000 to step down.

And while the New York Times reports that "a number of (tea party) members acknowledge that they are relying on government programs for help" as they struggle with job loss and other problems of the recession, it seems that some teabaggers have managed this economic downturn quite nicely. That's to be expected from those who benefited from the Bush tax cuts though.

The newspaper estimated the crowd at more than 400, including some from neighboring Wisconsin. A small group of Stupak supporters gathered across the street. When one tea party speaker arrived in a Mercedes, some of them yelled that he should buy an American-made car.

Tea Party speakers, riding around in the Mercedes. But hey, they are grassroots folks, just like average Americans, right? What the media has pretty much ignored is that the people running the Tea Party Express are the folks from "Our Country Deserves Better" - the same Republican operatives that spent a fortune trying to discredit Obama during the '08 campaign, using every underhanded right wing smear they could think of.

The nonpartisan campaign watchdog group FactCheck.org has faulted Our Country Deserves Better's ads. In October 2008, FactCheck noted that the PAC's ads against Barack Obama were based on "charges that fueled months' worth of misleading and false chain e-mails."

"Our Country Deserves Better" spent $500,000 on ads in Michigan featuring Jeremiah Wright. They are the ones who questioned Obama's faith and patriotism, insinuating that Obama was really Muslim. And they also funnel their money right back to their Republican consulting firm. From late 2009:

The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.

Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, you can find more conservative wealthy Republican connections with the Google. Have fun.

Real grassroots tea party members can consider their "movement" co-opted, the GOP and their wealthy donors will be taking over now, thank you very much. Keep those donations coming in though, teabaggers. As soon as they elect the "less government spending = more tax cuts for the rich" Bush Republicans back into office, it will trickle right back down to you. Honest.

Better hope they don't cut your Medicare though. Or privatize your Social Security. That would be a real bummer. After all, programs that benefit you, average American, are the "government spending" that will be the first to go should they return to power.